Saturday, March 14, 2015

Sporting KC Fall in Dallas

Sporting Kansas City's first road trip of the year didn't turn out very well for KC in Dallas tonight as a Blas Perez brace helped to lead Dallas to a 3-1 win over KC. While KC didn't look extremely well in the loss, and probably deserved to lose the game, the scoreline did flatter Dallas a little bit considering Perez and about four other Dallas players were offside on Perez's second goal, and without that goal, the question becomes whether KC would have been pushing forward as much leading to Dallas' third goal on the counter.

KC actually had the better of possession in the first half, but in the run of play were really struggling to create chances. KC's best opportunities were coming from set pieces and corners from Benny Feilhaber and Graham Zusi. Fabian Castillo almost scored in the seventh minute as he cut in and around four or five Kansas City defenders before hitting a shot from close range that Luis Marin blocked clear. In the 17th minute though, Dallas were the ones that grabbed the lead on a mistake by right back Amadou Dia. Dia beat Castillo to a ball over the top, but didn't do well with the clearance, just right to Castillo collected it and played it right into the path of Tesho Akindele who cut back on Marcel de Jong and played the ball into the path of Perez who fired it past Marin and into the net giving Dallas the 1-0 lead. Kansas City continued to get some chances from set pieces but couldn't capitalize. On one of those set pieces it looked like KC's center back issues would continue as Ike Opara and Chris Seitz both went up for a ball, collided in the air and hit the ground hard. Opara looked in a lot of pain holding his shoulder, immediately fans flashed back to Feilhaber's dislocated shoulder against Houston last year. Thankfully in the end Opara was able to continue. Late in the half though they did find an equalizer through Roger Espinoza. Espinoza received a simple pass from Feilhaber near midfield. Espinoza dribbled up field into the Dallas final third with no one really shutting him down. Finally once he got to the top of the box he fired a shot on goal before pressure got on him. Dallas goalkeeper, Seitz was either shielded or made a horrible read on Espinoza's shot as he reacted late, diving to his near post but was unable to keep the ball out of the net.

Early in the second half, Dallas regained the lead with Perez again scoring the goal. After a Michel corner was cleared right back to the Dallas player, Michel cut back inside moving back up field before playing the ball back into the box. While Michel was doing this, the KC line had pushed back up field. The ball fell to Perez who brought it down with just chest and fired it past Marin and in. Unfortunately for KC Perez was offside when Michel's ball was played along with three to four teammates, but assistant referee, Eric Boria kept his flag down and the goal stood. Shortly after the goal, Perez almost finished off his hattrick after a poor giveaway by de Jong in KC's defensive end of the field. Thankfully Perez's header from about the six was right at Marin, who had to hurry to get back into goal after the giveaway. Down a goal again, KC had to push numbers forward, and in the 73rd got hit on the counter, for Dallas' third goal. After Zusi had the ball tackled away in the Dallas half of the field, Michel played a great ball over the top to Ryan Hollingshead who ran straight by de Jong into KC's half of the field. As Opara came over to cover, Hollingshead played a ball back into the middle for Castillo who had burned past Dia, touched the ball past an on rushing Marin and calmly put the ball into the net to make it 3-1. A couple minutes later though KC thought they had a life line. Off a Zusi free kick, substitute, Bernardo Anor was fouled in the box by Matt Hedges leading to a penalty kick for Kansas City. Dom Dwyer stepped up to take the kick, but hit the PK poorly. It was right in that range to the keepers side where they can easily reach it with a dive. Seitz pushed the shot away and the rebound was cleared. KC pushed forward the rest of the way trying to find themselves a goal to close the gap but were unable to test Seitz and KC sank to the bottom of the West two games into the season thanks to other results around the league.

Wizards Man of the Match - Roger Espinoza - Really I don't think anyone looked that good overall tonight, the defense had a lot of issues, the outside backs especially, the midfield continued to be a bit disjointed in its style, even with the insertion of another defensive minded midfielder in Paulo Nagamura, and the attackers didn't test Seitz enough. Espinoza gets it for showing a willingness to attack on the dribble and scoring a goal tonight.

Agreed. Zusi looks slow, physically and mentally. Benny has flashes of brilliance but hasn't affected the game as of yet. And Dom left his scoring boots at home so far. Not sure why Seth didn't start but hopefully it isn't a couches preference because he's much better than his replacement was.

Two of the three Dallas goals saw the outside backs failing pretty bad. On both, De Jong was chasing the guy he was "marking" back towards our goal.

As for Benny, he's being played in a deeper role (the opposite of what he was playing), so I would cut him a big amount of slack there for only having flashes of brilliance. I mean the guy played center back last game when Matt was sent off.

Just as with last season, we need another "starter" for CB. Ellis does his part and is a good sub. But he really is an outside back. He may even be better suited at dmid.

Speaking of dmid, Benny doesn't seem to get that he does have to play defense -- particularly to protect the back four. He spent a lot of time watching and waiting for the ball instead of marking and taking the ball. He also spent too much effort dribbling and being cute on the ball. The dmid is to distribute the ball -- pass the ball.

In fact, this whole team needs to learn to pass the ball more. It is good at times to take on the defender when you have the ball. But once you start to draw other defenders, you have to get the ball to the open man.

Finally, Dom needs to stop pressing. Quit trying to impress you wife or whomever you are trying to impress. Quit thinking and just do.